# # WHISKEY RECIPES PLEASE ! ! ! ! # #
Vox Man
I've got all sorts of distillation equipment,
but HOW do you go about making a good bourbon
or moonshine without making wood alcohol and going
blind?
PLEASE HELP!
THANKYOU in advance!!!
Dag Wästberg
Well here in Norway home distilling is very popular (and illegal!), so I
have some idea of how it is done. I should point out that I have not done
it, or seen it done, so this information is based on hearsay, books, and
what I can remember from chemistry classes.
Basically there are two types of distilling; fractional and crude.
Fractional distillation gives you pure 96% abv. Crude distillation gives
you roughly 80% abv and is used for flavored spirits, i.e. whisky, gin etc.
For fractional distillation you need a fractional distillation column.
This is basically a long glass column filled with glass beads. It is
placed vertically above the heating container so the alcohol vapor passes
through it on it's way to the condenser. To make pure alcohol you need to
start with something my friends have affectionately chosen to call DYS
(Dodgy Yellow Stuff).
Side note: This was actually my first intro to the world of homebrewing.
Me and a friend bough 10 l. off someone we knew. We had no idea what it
really was, and it was really sweet. So three of us got together and in an
evening polished of most of it. The down side was that it was 15-20% abv,
and we were downing the stuff, straight and mixed. next morning I was this
close to giving up on alcohol forever. Now even the smell of DYS makes me
nauseous.
Anyway DYS is simply 10kg of sugar dissolved and topped with water to 30l.
You need to get hold of some special yeast which will brew ~20%. Ones the
crap is finished fermenting. You just chuck it in a fractional
distillation still and run it through. From what I gather the stuff that
come out should be pure alcohol. Some people say you should run the stuff
which comes out through the still again just to be safe. You can then
water down the alcohol to the strength you want and add flavor essences
(This is very popular in Norway and you can get flavorings for just about
any spirit.
For Whiskey and such, you need a crude still. which is the same as the
still above except the fractional distillation column is removed.
This means the distillation process is not as fine and some of the
flavoring elements come through. You need to make a base first. This is
pretty much the stuff which you want to make stronger. So for whisky you
would make a very malty beer, and is alcoholic as you could possibly brew
it. Then just distill this in a crude still. The stuff that comes out is
roughly 80%abv. so you may want to water it down. Also whisky gets most of
its flavor from lying in old oak casks for a LONG time. So if you want
good stuff you must be prepared to hunt down a second hand oak barrel and
be very patient.
No matter what you are distilling make sure you chuck the first 1-2 dl that
come through the still as this is almost pure fusel (sp.) oil and other
crap. Also be careful with the temperature when distilling, use the lowest
temp possible. Some guy not to far away from where I live had a still in
the basement. I don't know how big it was or what went wrong, but one day
when he was out the alcohol fumes got to hot and escaped in to the room.
Some how they got sparked and the foundation of his house moved about a
foot out. Needless to say the ground floor was also missing. The amusing
thing was that this was how his wife first found out that he was
distilling. Although the alcohol you produce is pure, I'd imagine that
drinking pure 96% is not very good for you. You have no idea how much
government propaganda there is about the dangers of drinking '96' as its
called here in Norway.
As I said I haven't tried this and I probably won't, but I'd like to hear
from you if you try it.
--
swes...@xxxxxx.no
replace xxxxxx with online